How To Promote Your High Street Retail Business Heading Into 2026

TL;DR? Here's What To Focus Your Retail Marketing Efforts On In 2026

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The cost-of-living crisis shows no sign of abating, consumer confidence remains low, and more people than ever are shopping online, which means trading conditions in the last three months of 2025 and into 2026 are going to remain challenging for retailers with physical premises. Here are the things you should be doing to boost your chances as a small, independent retailer:

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• Do more brand marketing. People buy from business they already know, like and trust, so invest in this as a priority. Make your business hard to ignore

• Invest in Local SEO. Customers do a lot of research online before heading into town these days, so make sure you show up and grab attention in search results

• Run more offers. Visiting their local high strreet is an effort for people that can otherwise order from Amazon or Temu, so make it worth their while

• Team up with other retailers. Explore the idea of offering join incentives like "10% off coffee and cake at Maple & Bean when you spend £25 or more at Jessica's"

• Innovate. Think about new ways you can help people enjoy what you offer that still get them through the door.

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Being A High Street Retailer Is Tough, Here's Why

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There are several key trends that make high street retail harder than ever:

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Cost-of-living increases: Living in the UK has become significantly more expensive in the past two decades.

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According to the Bank of England's online inflation calculator, goods and services costing £10 in July 2025 would have cost only £7.20 ten years earlier. Rewind to 2005, and they'd have only cost £5.62.

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Nominally, average weekly earnings have consistently risen over the same 20 year period, but when adjusted for inflation (putting the figures into 'real terms'), it's clear: people have less spending power. 

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Growth in online shopping: more and more people now buy online and enjoy the convenience of home delivery.

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It's reported that back in 2005, online spending was already growing at 20 times that of the overall retail market but it still only accounted for 5% of total retail sales.

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By 2020, online shopping had more than trippled its share of retail sales to 18%. 

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Then came Covid, which saw online shopping grow by 44% as lockdowns boosted the shift to digital purchasing.

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That growth in online sales comes at the expense of bricks-and-mortar retailers on our high streets.

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In fact, data show a long-term decline of high street footfall from 2008 to 2019, then a huge collapse resulting from Covid. The numbers have since recovered to a degree, but the situation can best be described as 'patchy'.

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Political change: we've had six general elections in 20 years, plus Brexit, all of which have caused uncertainty and dented consumer confidence.

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Whenever there's a change of government or prevailing political ideology, people begin to worry about job security, the prospect of increased taxes, and the threat of rising interest rates that make mortgage repayments more expensive. 

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It has a tendency to trigger reduced non-essential spending and encourages precautionary saving.

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The long-running GfK UK Consumer Index, which has been measuring consumer confidence since 1974, has been in negative territory for most of the past two decades, apart from a handful of +1 and +2 reports between 2005 and 2007. It dropped to its lowest ever level of -49 in September 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, and although it has recovered since, it was at -17 in August 2025.

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When you add these together, the picture that emerges is one in which consumers have less disposable income, are worried about spending too much, and, when they do go on a shopping spree, are more likely to do so on Amazon or Temu rather than travel to their nearest high street shopping area. 

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On top of all this, there are the high rents, business rates, energy costs, and employment taxes too 

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It's really not easy.

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What Can Your High Street Business Do To Boost Its Fortunes With Promotional Marketing?

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There's not a lot you can do about political instability, other than be aware of it, but you can do something about the other external factors that make high street retailing tough.

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Helping Consumers Through The Cost-of-Living Crisis

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If disposable income is tight for your ideal customers, but they do still spend and you want them to spend it with you, you have a few levers you can pull.

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• Introductory offers: Tempt people to make a purchase by making their first transaction cheaper for them

• ‍Rewards for repeat sales: Focus on Customer Lifetime Value, and once you've obtained someone's custom, keep them coming back by making it more attractive to spend with you instead of rivals

• ‍Offer extended payment terms: Allow customers to spread the costs of their purchases with payment plans, including by offering Klarma and similar 'buy now, pay later' options

Make it clear in your promotional communications and Point-Of-Sale displays that you recognise that the cost-of-living crisis makes it harder for customers to justify their spending on non-essential goods and services, and that your offers, rewards, and payment plans are your way of responding to shopper's financial pressures. 

Case Study: How We Helped a Hair Salon Get 20 Brand New Clients A Week

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Working with a hairdresser near Preston, we used Facebook and Instagram ads to promote a three-part introductory offer. New clients were offered a steep 50% off 'tryme' discount to get them through the door. When paying at the end of their first appointment, they were offered 25% off a second appointment if booked whilst still in the salon. Around 60% of these first-time clients took advantage, and were offered 10% off a third appointment if, again, booked before leaving the salon. Roughly half of those who had enjoyed two appointments returned for the third, but also  then continued to use the salon. This approach generated more than £100,000 in annualised new revenue in 12 months, combining both an introductory offer plus rewards for repeat custom.

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Responding To The Challenge of Online Shopping

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Whilst people are strongly attracted to the convenience of online shopping, with 'one-click-buying' and home delivery, there are still those who like to shop in person.

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Your job is to get in front of this audience, make sure they know you exist, cater to the online part of their shopping journey, make sure they know where to find you, and emphasise the social elements of a shopping trip, then pair all this with irresistible offers (see above).

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Start by claiming your free Google Maps listing: Formerly known as Google My Business, your Google Maps listing can help you get found when people are searching online for retail outlets like yours

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Optimise your Google Maps appearance: Populate all relevant fields, including opening hours, location, and products and services. Upload attractive photos of your premises (outside and inside) as well as products and people. Then post an update at least once a week

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This will improve your chances of showing up in Google's search engine results pages and, in particular, the 'map pack' that is often displayed prominently near the top

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Maintain an active social media presence: Identify the social media platforms your ideal customers are most likely to use, and then post to these regularly. Remind people where they can find you, show off your premises and people, and let your audience know about your products and services. Aim for rougly 20% of your social posts to be 'salesy' and product/service focused, with the remaining 80% designed to educate, engage, and even entertain. Guess what? Search engines index your social media posts so it's another way to show-up when people are searching online

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Use social media ads to reach a wider audience more often: Organic-only social media is no longer an option, you need to put some money into ads too these days if you want to get in front of enough people regularly enough for them to notice and remember you. Don't worry, it doesn't have to be expensive, awareness ads on Facebook cost around just £3.50 per thousand people reached

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Make it easy for shoppers: If online shopping is about being able to find what you want quickly and have it delivered to your door, offer in-person shoppers something similar. Let them see your wears online, and then give them the opportunity to reserve for an in-store demo, to try on (if the items are clothing), or to simply collect. You don't need a hugely complex ecommerce website to achieve this, you can set up appointment booking with Google Calendar or Microsoft Booking

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Emphasise the benefits of in-person shopping: When shopping online, people are interested in price, speed, and convenience. To attract those who are prepared to make the effort to shop in-person, highlight personal service, the ability to see, touch, and experience your products or services before buying, but also the social aspects of a shopping trip - the ability to hang out with friends, get something to eat, and turn it into a more pleasant experience

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Tempt them in with incentives: Along with introductory discounts, think added value (such as selling 'bundles' that offer customers a saving but also mean they spend more with you overall), or make in-store treats available, or team-up with other local businesses ("Spend £25 in-store with us and we'll give you a money-off voucher you can use when enjoying coffee and cake at Maple & Bean two doors along"). If you think paying to travel into town might be a barrier to some shoppers, offer to reimburse them some or all of their bus fare or car parking charge (depending on how much they spend with you)

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‍Common Retail Marketing Mistakes To Avoid

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The biggest overall error we come across is the belief that high street retailers don't need 'proper' marketing.

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The fact is they do. And it's as important to smaller independents as it is to Next and M&S.

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As part of this thinking, we see retailers make these mistakes in particular:

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• ‍Believing an attractive shop front is enough: It's true, a shop front that grabs attention and invites curiosity is essential. But it's not enough on its own

• ‍Relying too much on having a prominent location: Being on the main high street versus a quiet side street is still an advantage, but it costs more and there are still no guarantees of success because footfall in town and city centres has declined

• ‍Expecting word-of-mouth to bring in new customers: There was a time when this played a bigger part, but things have changed. For a start, we don't socialise as much since Covid and so there are fewer opportunuties for people to spread the word about you in person. In today's world, consumers look online and on social media for trust signals

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You can't just assume that what worked before will work now. 

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20 years ago, when larger towns and most city centres had big 'anchor' retailers like Debenhams, and whilst online shopping was still in its infancy, if your shop stood out and offered things people tend to buy regularly, you were quids in; people would visit their high street shopping locations regularly, drawn by the big brand names, and all shops, pubs, bars, cafés and restaurants would gain some custom. As the saying goes "a rising tide lifts all boats in the harbour".

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But the retail landscape has changed. Without those big anchor tentants in shopping centres, and with more people choosing to shop from the comfort of their sofas, you need to work harder to get in front of, connect with, and attract those consumers who can still be persuaded to shop local and shop in person.

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Key Takeaways: How You Can Improve Your Chances As A High Street Retailer By Embracing Modern Marketing Methods

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The cost-of-living crisis, growth in online shopping, and low consumer confidence stemming from two decades of political uncertainty mean that high street retailing is probably now the hardest it's ever been

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• As retailers, you can't rely on the draw of anchor tentants, visible shop fronts, prominent locations, and word-of-mouth anymore. It's too passive, a more active approach to promotional marketing is now needed

• There's not a lot that you can do to boost consumer confidence, but you can take steps to lessen the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis and to compete with online retailers

• Focus on making your high street retail business more visible to more people by embracing digital marketing and, in particular, making good use of Google Maps, paid and organic social media

• Tempt people to shop with you using incentives, make it easy, and highlight all the positive advantages of visiting their towns and cities rather than shopping exclusively online

• Innovate by doing things differently. Remember when book shops introduced cafés? It was about making them 'sticky' so customers would linger for longer, but also made the buying of books into an experience - it's a simple innovation but one that worked

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Enjoyed reading this blog? Learned something useful? Then show it some love by sharing it on your socials for us!  

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And, if you're a retailer based in Lancashire, sign up for the Retail Renaissance programme from the Boost Lancashire and the North & Western Lancashire Chamber of Commerce, where we'll be delivering a series of workshops focused on digital marketing, innovation, and ecommerce. Click here to find out more.

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